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Saturday, October 30, 2010

As promised, I want to share with you my Holiday Control Journal. I'm going to do this in several steps over the next few weeks. The original idea comes from Flylady and you can access her actual Holiday Control Journal to download and/or print by choosing The Table Of Contants on the sidebar of her site and than chosing "Flylady's Control Journals" from the Fly Zone Box. I took her Holiday Journal and morphed it into my own.

I have two Control Journals, the green one is my every day Control Journal, which I realized I haven't shared yet either! And the black one is my Holiday Control Journal.

When building your holiday control journal, don't wait for the perfect supplies. Just grab a binder, a folder, or even a file folder; some loose leaf lined paper or typing paper, and a pen or pencil! I prefer to do mine on the computer but you don't have to - just do what works for you!!

I also use page protectors, but that is something you can add later!

So the first section in my Holiday Control Journal is my "Holiday Plan" which you can view here.
My plan begins the first week in November with cleaning and decorating the Dining Room. Because I decorate every room in my house for Christmas, I have chosen to divide my house by zones, ending with the Living Room. This way, it isn't so overwhelming when it is time to decorate the tree and we can actually enjoy doing that final touch. I than spend December working on the other things like taking the family Christmas picture and writing our Christmas letter, baking cookies, and wrapping gifts! We also have a Birthday to celebrate just a few days before Christmas so the week before that is all for Birthday plans! You may also notice some traditions thrown in during December: 1) Baking Christmas Cookies 2) Delivering baskets to neighbors 3) Searching for the best lights (we drive around, look for great light displays, get the address of the home and send a thank you!) I write those down so I don't forget to do them! The things that are underlined in my journal are things I need to purchase (please note, that they more than likely will not all get purchased this year but I went ahaed and included EVERYTHING that came to mind!)

Are you ready to start? First, I would decide how many weeks you need to get things done. Maybe you really gear up for Thanksgiving - than start your control journal with Thanksgiving plans so that when you get to the week of Thanksgiving you can relax. That is the joy of it being YOUR journal, write the plan that works for you! Second, if you are still buried in Clutter, I would take 15 - 30 minutes a day and concentrate on clearing the piles. Don't do deep decluttering, just clean the piles so you have room to decorate. Third, just start writing your plan!!

Part 2 will be on Holiday Traditions and the all important menu!
Part 3 will be on gift giving and traveling
Part 4 will be on other holidays in your journal

I just have a few. I, of course, was given the nick name "Jack-0-Latern" fairly early. (It is just a natural fit with "Jackie") and I still get it to this day. I find it ironic that people think I've never heard it before LOLOL

Other ones - just plain "Jack" - close friends call me that and one man in my dad's church that I grew up in, Mr. Anderson, has always called me Jack and still does to this day. When I hear it I often think of him! (I love his wife too - she inspired me a lot and still does!)

Lets see, my oldest brother calls me Jack-Baby because he still views me as the "baby" and I am his baby sister.

And I think that is it LOL Not to exciting!

Don't forget to click on the the Katie's Journey button on my left side-bar to read more!

About Me

I am a wife and mother - and a stay at home mom. I have two boys who are 4 and 5 and was asked "What do you do?" and my response was . .. nothing? I'm unemployed? I stay at home? I'm a mom? At which time I realized . . .I'm "Unworking". I'm "just" a mom who doesn't work; what an understandment!

Family

My Little Fam

My husband Darryl and I have been married for 12 years and have known each other for . . 13 years. We met on-line through a site called Christian Matchmaker.com on Oct. 31, 2000, met in person on December 16, 2000, were engaged on March 18, 2001 and Married August 4, 2001. When you are "old" you know what you are looking for!! We were married for 7 years before being blessed with baby #1, Josh, who is currently 5 years old and than baby #2, Nate, who is currently 4 years old. We also have some furry kids too - China is our sweet pooch whom we adopted in July 2003. She is a dignified mutt who loves to sleep . . and . . .sleep. (Couch potato!). Than we have Misty who is my cat. She is about 18 years old but still acts like she is a kitten. That's us :-)